Happy International Peace Day Evergreen58,
Good afternoon PoliTalker,
My discussion at this point would center around what I said in my first reply:
I suppose the idea of Socialism could be good if human nature was pure. If everyone truly did work to the best of their ability then it would be easier to feel good about goods and services being distributed to them. But I believe there are those who would take advantage of the system - as William Bradford discovered in 1620. He discovered that those participating in the work increased when they got to reap the benefits of their own work - and not have the product of their hard work given to those who did not work. I believe there are many conservatives who would be more open to a socialist society if there could be a way to eliminate benefits going to those who don't want to work. How could we fix this problem?
What we do is we don't abandon capitalism! We need capitalism to support the safety net. And people are just going to have to accept that some of their hard work will have to go to paying taxes, and some of that revenue from those taxes is going to be spent on things that people disagree with.
Then there is another problem. I believe greed is the driving force behind much innovation and invention. Why would someone want to work tirelessly to innovate and invent if the goods and services they produce will be regulated by the government? There may be exceptions, but surely no-one is naive enough to think that most men and women will work solely for the common good. This sounds good. It is probably the Christian way. But it is not human nature.
Well if that's the Christian way, and we are a Christian nation, then how come that is not OUR way?
And the answer is that most people who claim to be Christians don't act very much like it.
But that doesn't matter. The profit motive is a strong motivator for people to strive, yes. But it is not the reason most people work hard. Most people are employees who work at a fixed rate. Yes, there are entrepreneurs, sales people, and executives who are paid more if they work harder, but for MOST workers, the only reason to work hard is to avoid getting fired. Let's be honest. Job security is really the strongest motivator. For most workers, if they produce more, somebody else takes it. The owners and investors of the company gets the reward for workers being more productive. That's why so many large employers put the big squeeze on their workers to produce more.
Lots of people work at jobs which only offer more rewards if the worker does a good job and stays on the job for a long duration, working their way up in seniority. Government workers and a lot of corporate bureaucrats work like that. Some jobs have more well defined levels of advancement than others. Military, police, fire, social services, etc, those are kinds of jobs where advancement only comes after good performance and accrued experience. The carrot of being paid more is out there, even if it is not a profitable organization. That's why people would strive, even if they don't really have the immediate profit motive. I don't call that greed. I call that ambition.
Also, it appears to me that many politicians who support socialism live in opulence themselves sharing very little of what they have with others. Sadly, they do not practice what they preach. This is a huge problem which leads to cynicism by conservatives. We all are more likely to follow those who practice what they preach. Which modern day politician does this? (not sure how to recapture this in italics)
I'm sure there are plenty of rich politicians who give generously to charitable organizations. That's not news, so you don't hear about it much. One person who comes to mind is President Jimmy Carter.
The Carter Center
Especially comments about the William Bradford experiment. But since you do not believe in a purely socialist government, you would probably not argue with my points. Your paradigm works well and as you say is pretty much what we have now. So my question to those who advocate pure socialism is "what about the William Bradford experiment?"
Oh, that was the Plymouth Colony, right? They had no monetary system, so they tried to do it like a commune, but people didn't work hard enough to produce what was needed? There's a bit more to that story than some story-tellers relate. They showed up too late to plant crops before the winter. And they didn't know what grew well in that climate. The first years were very difficult. THAT is why so many died and it was so difficult for them to survive. Those people arrived with nothing. How could a monetary system even work for them?
I'm certainly not saying we should try a completely communist system like that. I FAVOR capitalism! I just want to continue to mix it with socialism and help people realize that it works that way for us. We've done very well with lots of socialism mixed in with our capitalism. I'm just interested in honest discussions where we admit that. I think it is a myth when you hear people say that 'everywhere socialism has been tried it has failed.' No. That is not true. Not true at all. Socialism is alive and well all over the planet, and doing very well for people.
ps: if you hilite and click the
I above the dialog box, it will italicize what you hilited.
